EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT because it enters into competition with other articles, or its method of manufacture is not approved by the majority in Congress, we place in the hands of the national legislature a power which may prove absolutely subver sive of individual liberty and of that freedom of commerce which the Constitution was, above all other things, created to pre serve." CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Federal Labor Legislation). " The Constitutionality of Fed eral Legislation Concerning Employer and Employee Engaged in Interstate and Foreign" Commerce," by Carl Wisner, in the June Michigan Laiv Review (V. v, p. 639), is a dis cussion of the power of Congress to legislate concerning employer and employee in inter state commerce, recently questioned in sev eral important cases, wherein the issue was: "Does the regulation of the relation of employer and employee, determining rules of liability in case of accidents, limiting the right to contract, and imposing the perform ance of duties on those assuming the relation, constitute a proper regulation of commerce by Congress within the meaning of the commerce clause?" As a result of its historical development Mr. Wisner discusses the subject in the fol lowing four general divisions. "(1) Legislation by Congress affecting em ployer and employee engaged in transporta tion by water; (2) Legislation by Congress affecting employer and employee engaged in railroad transportation; (3 ) Legislation by Congress regulating hours of labor and (4) Legislation by Congress securing the right of the employee to belong to Labor Unions." A valuable review of the legislation and the cases leads the author to the conclusion that the statutes questioned " must be regarded as a part of the general system of commercial regulations adopted by Congress for the bene fit of the general public, the protection of the shipper, the traveling public, and of employees engaged in a difficult and hazardous occupa tion, whether they relate to employees engaged in transportation by water, or by railroad," and that they are valid. "By viewing the legislation discussed as a whole, it becomes apparent that no great or sweeping changes in the law have taken place.
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Constitutional principles do not change, but new conditions call for new applications of well-known and long tried rules." , CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (History and the Future). " A Written Constitution in Some of Its Historical Aspects," by Andrew C. McLaughlin, June Michigan Law Review (V. v, p. 605). This address, delivered at the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of Iowa, March 19, 1907, analyzes with skill the historical elements that entered into the Constitution of the United States. Unlike some recent writers who have expressed themselves very vigorously, the author thinks our Supreme Court's right to refuse recognition to uncon stitutional laws is a logical and necessary result of the fixity of our Constitution . "From the mere fact that the Constitution was law, the courts were under obligation to recognize its binding force." Leaving the his torical field the author speculates as to the future. Is the rigidity of our Constitution yielding? The development 'of the police power is encroaching on the individualism on which our structure was based. The effort to con tinue in accord with a Federal Constitution drawn up in days of individualism has de manded numerous adjustments. These ad justments have been made easy in part by the general terms in which the Constitution is framed, making it unnecessary to follow lit erally the ideas in the minds of its framers. "Can our- elastic Federal Constitution, framed under conditions so different from those now existing, continue to be respected, in so far as it limits the competence of Congress? Many things have been done in the past and are done daily that are so far in advance of any conception of the Fathers, that we find difficulty, by processes of devious ratiocina tion, in reconciling them with the idea that the Constitution is a document of enumerated powers. But these changes have come slowly, and we have thought that we were still cling ing tenaciously to the principle of law and the theory of constitutional limitation. Now, however, we are frankly told that the great fact of a national conscience, national will, and a national need must be recognized; if the states cannot individually do their duty,
